Public/private anti-ransomware initiative seeing huge interest

No More Ransomware, the free non-profit initiative launched by Intel Security, Kaspersky Lab and the Dutch Police has seen growing success.

The initiative's aim was to take down ransomware gangs, acquire their decryption keys and then make decryption tools for the general public to download and get their data back.

Ransomware is claiming victims at an alarming rate: according to Kaspersky Lab, the number of users attacked by crypto-ransomware rose by 550 percent, from 131,000 in 2014-2015 to 718,000 in 2015-2016.

Initially launched on 25 July, the website saw three million visitors on launch, and is now getting between 300 and 500 thousand visits per day.

Speaking to a group of journalists this morning, Raj Samani, EMEA CTO of Intel Security, said that, “Although the National Crime Agency is currently investigating occurrences of ransomware and are looking to prosecute those involved, no single public body has enough power to fight the problem that is ransomware alone.”

Samani continued, “We strongly believe the best way to fight ransomware is through a public/private cooperation. Together with Kaspersky Lab and the Dutch Police we have now been able to get hold of 250,000 decryption keys, and over 20,000 have downloaded our decryption tools, which are generally released with 12-13 hours of us getting hold of the keys.”

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